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authentic wooden crossbar from a trackside railroad 'utility wire pole'

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Tools and Hardware550 of 10104Fireplace vintage MOOD SETTER ceiling fan remote control kit
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    Posted 2 years ago

    AnythingOb…
    (1778 items)

    This thing is rather difficult to photograph (not to mention to display?) being essentially a 3 x 4 inch solid wooden beam that also happens to be roughly 10 *feet* long. <groan> Aside from all that, it *is* an actual crossbar that once lived bolted near the top of a wooden 'utility wire pole' likely alongside some railroad tracks someplace, (but maybe not?) also likely with at least a couple others and all ultimately holding up a bunch of suspended wires on glass insulators, a few of which are seen here on the iron posts that are bolted through it along its length.

    [somebody asked recently, "what do y'all do to display old glass insulators?" here's an answer, get one of these?!! <LOL>]

    It now is resting on a couple stamped metal shelf brackets hanging from the side of the house (over the patio again) under a couple of the traffic lights. (pic 2) The pair of iron straps that braced it came with it, now with a simple long masonry screw holding them together in approximately the position they would have been in when originally lagbolted to their pole, that's pic 3.

    Pic 4 is meant to show something unexpected about it -- the insulator posts that came bolted to it all have a *smaller* sized thread than any of my collection of assorted old insulators do -- the only of those I currently have that actually screwed onto one properly is the closest (left) one to the camera, which actually has a short wooden 'adapter' stub piece screwed up into it to fit the smaller metal post thread. I do not know if that was common practice, if so I've never seen it anyway, and I also have a handful of other loose posts in larger sizes, some that *do* fit the common insulators and a few more that are too big. The next one (to right) is simply sitting completely over the next small post with its bottom fully on the crossbar, like the 3rd which is sitting beside it by itself.

    I'd sorta hoped I could properly put insulators on all its existing posts, maybe adding a few of my spares to fill in the pre-existing holes in it that don't already have a post in 'em, then line up other loose insulators between them so the whole thing would serve as a kinda 'display shelf'. That plan now is gonna take a little more thought and/or bracket tweaking to accomplish, both because of the post-size thing, and because the weather worn top surface of the wood beam isn't even close to being actually *flat* anymore, thus loose glass insulators lined up on it would also end up sitting on a slanted surface with gravity aiming 'em towards a potentially random 8' slide/drop off to the concrete below... <nono>

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    Comments

    1. Watchsearcher Watchsearcher, 2 years ago
      What a great display!

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